Kentucky Football was back in the top 25 and headed to Columbia to face a South Carolina team on the brink of disaster. The Gamecocks had lost big to Alabama and then blew a home lead to Mississippi State.
Things started pretty badly for the Cats, who found themselves down 17-0 before finally taking the lead at 24-20 in the third quarter.
Coming into Saturday afternoon, the Cats’ opponents were 26/58 on third downs. That bugaboo for Jay Bateman’s defense crept up at the worst possible time.
The Cats
had the lead, scored 24 of the last 27 points, and the momentum was on the visitors’ sideline. Until it wasn’t.
It was 3rd and 11 from the 24, and Kentucky watched as LaNorris Sellers broke loose for 74 yards all the way down to the Kentucky two-yard line.
Just like that, the entire game was flipped around. South Carolina fans were energized again, the Gamecock players had a bounce in their step, and two plays later they took the lead again.
Credit to the Cats, though. They fought back to tie the game and eventually send it to OT. And then on 3rd and 2, Sellers and Carolina sneak a TE into the end zone off RPO action and take the lead, and force Kentucky to match the score.
On the night, the Gamecocks were at 50%, 8-of-16 on 3rd downs. That normally means a loss, but the Cats escaped thanks to a gutsy call from Will Stein.
Kentucky scored, went for 2, and knocked off Shane Beamer for the first time in 5 years. But things have to get better on 3rd down if the Cats are going to keep on winning in the SEC.
That’s especially true when you look at the upcoming schedule, which has several dual-threat quarterbacks who can really burn this defense like Sellers did if they’re not prepared.
Will Stein knows as much.
“Sam Leavitt can run. John Mateer. They can all run,” Stein exclaimed. “So you got to be able to contain these guys. It’s not like there are giant explosive runs from running backs right now. It’s literally quarterback scrambles, and so that has to improve. We know that. We are aware of that. Nobody’s shying away from that aspect of our defense.
“We got to do a better job of getting people to the ground on third downs.”
This week vs. LSU and Sam Leavitt will be a great test to see if Kentucky can improve in this area. For his career, Leavitt has 1,036 rushing yards and 16 scores on the ground.
Let’s see what Stein and Bateman can cook up this week.
